A second picket ship roared overhead, just as the first was exploding. A third followed, angling directly for the base of the tor where Cohl and the others were concealed.
The picket poured fire at the tor, blowing boulder-size chunks of lommite from the cliff face. Cohl watched the ship complete its turn and set itself on course for a second run. As it approached, a deeper, more dangerous sound rolled through the humid air. Without warning, crimson energy lanced from the underbelly of the clouds, clipping the picket's wings in midnight.
Unable to maneuver, the fighter flew nose first into the cliff face and came apart.
'That's another one we won't have to worry about,' Cohl said, loud enough to be heard over the roar in the sky.
Rella raised her head in time to see a large ship tear overhead.
'The Hawk-Bat!' She glanced at Cohl in surprise. 'You knew.
You knew she would be down here.' He shook his head. 'The contingency plan called for her to be here. But I didn't know for sure.' She almost smiled. 'You may get that pardon yet.' 'Save it for when we're safely aboard.'
The three of them scampered to their feet and began a hurried descent of a scree field skirting the cliff face. Not far away, her weapons blazing, the Hawk-Bat was setting down at the center of a Muddy and befouled catch basin.
T Thousands of sentient species had a home on Coruscant, though it might be only a kilometer-high block of nondescript building.
And nearly all those species had a voice there, though it might be only that of a representative long corrupted by the diverse pleasures Coruscant offered.
Those manifold voices had their say in the Galactic Senate, which sprouted like a squat mushroom from the heart of Corus — cant's governmental district. Surrounded by lesser domes and buttressed buildings whose summits disappeared into the busy sky, the senate was fronted by an expansive pedestrian plaza. The plaza itself lorded over a sprawl of spired skyscrapers and was studded with impressionistic statues thirty meters high, dedicated to the Core World founders. Angular and humaniform in design, the long-limbed and genderless sculptures stood on tall duracrete bases and held slender ceremonial staffs.
The iconic motif was continued inside the senate, where many of the public corridors that encircled the rotunda featured statues of similar spindly design.
Proceeding briskly along one of those corridors, Senator Pal — patine marveled at the fact that the senate had yet to commission and display sculptures of nonhumanoid configuration. Where some delegates were willing to dismiss the lack of nonhuman representation as a simple oversight, others viewed it as an outright slight. To still others, the decor was a matter of small concern, either way. But with nonhumanoid species dominant in the Mid and Outer Rims, and their delegations fast overwhelming the senate-to the secret dismay of many a Core World human delegate-changes were certainly in order.
With its multilevel walkways, corridors, and vertical and horizontal turbolifts, the hemispherical building was as labyrinthine as the inner workings of the senate itself. Courtesy of Supreme Chancellor Valorum's announcement of a special session, the corridors were even more jammed than usual, but Palpatine was heartened to find that the delegates could still be motivated to set aside their personal affairs for matters of broader import.
Flanked by his two aides, Doriana and Pestage, he smiled pleasantly as he threaded his way toward the rotunda, easing past the blue-robed Senate Guard stationed at the doorway and stepping down into ationaboo's balcony platform in the vast amphitheater.
One of 1,024 identical balconies that lined the inner wall of the dome, the platform was circular and spacious enough to accommodate half a dozen or more humans. Each balcony was actually the apex of a wedge- shaped slice of the building- stretching from the rotunda clear to the outer rim of the hemisphere-in which the separate delegations were quartered, and where most of the senate's mundane affairs and illicit business were transacted.
Adjusting the fall of his elaborate cloak, Palpatine stepped to the podiumlike console at the front lip of the platform. Given Naboo's elevated position in the rotunda, the view to the floor was vertiginous.
The amphitheater was purposely sealed off from natural light, as well as from Coruscant's dubious atmosphere, to minimize the effects of nightfall on the delegates; that is, to encourage everyone to remain focused on the matters at hand, despite the possibility that the sessions might continue late into the evening. But more and more citizens had come to view the rotunda's unnatural circumstances as symbolic of the senate's insularity — comxs separation from reality. The senate was thought to exist apart, debating issues of minor or occult concern, save for those that touched directly on the illegal enrichment of its membership.
Nevertheless, Palpatine sensed renewed intensity in the recycled air.
Gossip had alerted everyone to the topics Valorum planned to discuss, but many were eager to hear for themselves and hungry to respond.
In an effort to take a measure of senatorial opinion regarding taxation of the outlying trade routes, Palpatine had spent the past few days meeting with as many senators as possible. Gently, he had attempted to persuade the undecided into backing Valorum, so that the Supreme Chancellor might carry the day without the support of Naboo and its neighboring worlds. At the same time, Palpatine had devised alternative plans, sufficient for dealing with a host of eventualities.
His own sense of urgency took him by surprise; the buzz in the rotunda was that infectious. But just as he had done at the opera, Valorum delayed his arrival. By the time the Supreme Chancellor finally showed himself, the atmosphere was agitated.
Valorum's perch was a thirty-meter-tall dais that rose from the center of the floor like the stalk of a flower. Conveyed to the bud of the flower by turbolift, Valorum stood alone, with the senate's sergeant-at-arms, parlimentarian, journal clerk, and official reporter seated below him in a round dish that cradled the bud. Echoing the predominant color scheme of the amphitheater, he wore a lavender brocade cloak, with voluminous sleeves and matching cummerbund.
It occurred to Palpatine as he applauded that the Supreme Chancellor's lofty position made him as much a center of attention as target of opportunity.
When the clapping and the occasional verbal accolades had gone on long enough, Valorum held up his
